


Regret (lives in your shadow)

by lucidscreamer



Series: Shadows Over Collinsport [4]
Category: Dark Shadows (1966), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: AU for both series, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen, Mild Angst, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Quentin, Regret, Werewolf Curse, unconscious ryou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 14:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17102372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidscreamer/pseuds/lucidscreamer
Summary: Quentin Collins watched his grandson slump as the drugged tea took affect and felt a twinge of regret.





	Regret (lives in your shadow)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Dark Shadows is the creation of Dan Curtis. Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi. No ownership of the canon characters, settings, or events is claimed and none should be implied.
> 
>  
> 
> Canon-typical levels of drugged tea and putting people in the cell in the Old House's cellar. And Quentin's descendants turning into werewolves. If you're familiar with the old Dark Shadows, you know what to expect.
> 
> The next fic will resume Ryou's POV.

Quentin Collins watched his grandson slump as the drugged tea took affect and felt a twinge of regret. He had spent most of the day trying to find some way of telling Ryou the truth, but the words all seemed inadequate and got stuck in his throat. In the end, Quentin knew that there was nothing he could say that would convince Ryou of the truth in time to prevent a tragedy from occuring. Once the moon rose and released the werewolf, all the words in the world would do them no good.

By all accounts, Ryou had lived an ordinary life; there was no way he would understand the threat of the supernatural that now loomed over him. Not without a great deal of explanations and some sort of concrete proof that Quentin wasn't out of his mind with his talk of a magical curse passed down through the generations like a particularly unwanted heirloom. No, this was the only course of action that he could have taken. He would simply have to hope that, once everything was out in the open, his grandson would forgive him.

Carefully, Quentin lifted the slight young man from the wingchair in front of the fireplace. Ryou's skin was pale and, despite his earlier chill, hot to the touch. His eyes moved rapidly behind his closed lids. For the first time, Quentin noticed the dark bruises under Ryou's eyes, as if the younger man hadn't been resting well. Perhaps he suffered from nightmares? Would he have already begun feeling the effects of the curse? Quentin berated himself for the fact that he had never thought to ask Chris... much of anything, really. Quentin was not proud of the way he had treated his grandchildren. There had been a lot going on at Collinwood at the time, of course, but then there usually was. Witches and vampires and ghosts... There was always _something_ hanging over the Collins family like their own sword of Damocles. He acknowledged, now, that that didn't excuse his lack of interest or care. He had made a great many mistakes in the course of his long life; few of them did he regret as much as he did his treatment of his descendants. He was determined to make the most of this chance to rectify that with Amy's son.

As Quentin hurried toward the cellar stairs, he felt Ryou's muscles spasm as the curse began to take hold in earnest.

Barnabas was waiting for them in the cellar, the iron-barred door of the hidden cell already open to receive Ryou. Silent understanding passed between them as Quentin gently laid the unconscious Ryou on the bare cot within the cell. Barnabas lifted the heavy manacles and offered them to Quentin.

"I wish this weren't necessary," Quentin murmured, weighing the iron chains in his hands. The metal was cold, almost burning him where it touched his skin.

"As do I."

Ryou groaned, his body contorting as if in pain. His hands curled into claws where they lay against his chest, fingers digging into the fabric of his borrowed shirt.

"We haven't much time." Barnabas took one of the manacles from Quentin and clasped it around one of Ryou's wrists. "Quickly. We don't want him to hurt himself."

Forcing himself to move, Quentin fastened the remaining manacle around Ryou's other wrist. The chains led from the irons to a thick ring set into the stone of the cellar wall. There was just enough length in the chains to allow them to reach the cot, but not the bars of the cell wall or door. With the restraints in place, Quentin picked up the thick wool blanket that he'd asked Barnabas to bring down when he'd spoken to him earlier, under the pretence of looking for Bruno. Gently, he spread the blanket over Ryou's twitching body, wishing he could do more to protect his grandson from what was to come.

Numbly, Quentin let Barnabas usher him out of the cell and listened to the clank of metal on metal as Barnabas shut the door and turned the key in the lock.

He leaned against the wall opposite the cell, his back to it, and tried not to hear the tormented human groans turn to beastly snarls. He flinched when Barnabas' hand came down on his shoulder.

"I'll wait with you until dawn," Barnabas said. As a vampire, he would be forced to retreat to his coffin for the daylight hours.

His heart filled with guilt, Quentin could only nod. Keeping vigil over the werewolf in the cell -- over Ryou -- would be a kind of penance for at least some of his past sins. Tomorrow, he would have to reveal a lot of those sins to Ryou in order to fully explain the curse that had befallen him. The weight of that responsibility seemed enough to push him through the floor, and he collapsed in a kind of slow-motion until he was sitting with his back to the wall. He wrapped his arms around himself, turning his face to the side as if refusing to look would make the transformation any easier for his descendant.

In the short time that they'd known one another, he found that he'd grown quite fond of Ryou. Quentin could only hope that one day Ryou would find it in his heart to forgive him for the curse of their shared blood.

　

o0o

 


End file.
